Today is my second anniversary @ Oracle. So, was checking for few details about anniversaries yesterday, and got these really interesting details about anniversaries. Till yesterday i didnt know anything about it and not even bothered to know more about anniversaries. But after getting these details, i'm really amused with these many things for anniversaries. Here are they:

Actually, We call the anniversaries like Silver (for 25th), Gold (for 50th), etc based on the gifts which are given to your loved ones on that many year completion. even this i came to know only yesterday. (So beware guys. Don't ever share this with your loved ones.. jus kiddin.. ;) )

Traditional Wedding Anniversary GiftsIt is traditional to give a gift that symbolises the particular anniversary, typically these are made of a different material for each wedding anniversary.

I believe most of you have heard about the "Murphy's Laws". (if not you can know little here). The most famous one being "If anything can go wrong, it will". This law holds good in all conditions and at all time. There'll be lot of situations in our daily life, where this law gets proved over and over again. Here are the two scenarios which i faced in recent days which also proves that those laws are absolutely right.The first one which happened last week is the reason for my previous post. The procedure for configuring new router is soooooo simple that even a layman can do it perfectly without any issues. But there comes the power of Murphy's Law. Everthing went fine till i the power to the router got interrupted unexpectedly, when i was trying to remove the mobile charger (which has no connection with the router. not even the router adapter and my mobile charger were connected in the same power board). Thats it. just 1 second of power outage to the router at the crucial moment (when the router basic firmware was getting upgraded) caused so much of issues that, i decided at one point of time to dump this router (btw, the cost of that router was Rs. 2500 :( ) and get new one. But we cant leave it so easily right (That thought of dumping it came after 2 hours of struggle to get the router up and running). Another 1.5hrs of struggle, there comes the router alive again.Second one is even more interesting and very critical. This one happened when i was taking "Workshop Training to All India Oracle Accelerators Partners". They were group of 30, sitting in a conference room in gurgoan. So, this DBA workshop was thru online web conference. Me and my team-mate, along with my manager were in one of conf rooms here. My part in the workshop is to walk thru the steps of installing OBA instance with demo of the same. Everything was going fine from starting. After 10 mins, there was a sudden problem in network connection for us, that too when i was taking training for the first time for someone outside Oracle (Note: They have paid huge sum for taking this training. So you can imagine the importance of this training). Thats it. I was thinking that i screwed the whole training. We couldnt find any reasons for that loss of network. My team-mate, who is sitting next to me, has no issues in network. Got relaxed when my manager told me that even when the network is lost, the online web conf will be active for 10 mins, so i just continued the training. And to our relief, it got restored in the next minute. But that one minute, was like hell.

Only from these incidents i found that though this law seems to be not doing good at first glance, It really does good thing for us. If not that time, you wont get any other oppurtunity to learn to tackle those situations or find perfect solution for the problems. Net-Net, Never Ever think that you are in bad situation. Change the way of looking at it as the perfect oppurtunity to learn. As you pass those hurdles, you are that close to reach your goal.

Oops.... if the title matches your search, then i feel really bad for your situation. Because this is the worst thing that you can imagine and the least scenario which you expect to happen to your costly router. But dont panic. Here's a simple and easy steps for overcoming that problem. I have tried to put down the steps in most elaborate and sequential manner, as i couldnt find such step-by-step procedure anywhere to solve this problem (if you know any, please dont hesitate to include it in comments).

Product:I have WGR614v9 Wireless Router with me. So, the following steps are tried and tested in WGR614 Router Family. But please note that this is applicable to all the latest Netgear Router Families. You can find your Router Product Version on the bottom label of your router.

Symptoms:Your router is not working. It occurs mostly after upgrading router to latest version. And you find that the Power LED blinks every second.

Cause:Your router firmware is corrupt. (Note: Firmware - is a computer program that is embedded in a hardware device) The major possibility for this to happen is when power supply is cut down while the router is getting upgraded to the latest version i.e. while firmware in your router is upgrading. As the upgradation of firmware takes few minutes, its always advised to make sure that the power supply to the router wont get interrupted during that time (max 5 mins).

Solution:Now lets come to your current situation i.e. Power LED is blinking. Firmware got corrupted somehow. Here are the very simple steps to solve this problem:

1. Download the latest firmware.When you're upgrading the firmware automatically while starting the router, then it might have already downloaded the latest version. If so, locate that file. The filename looks like this "WGR614v9-V1.1.0.19.chk"If the file is not there, you can download the latest firmware by choosing your router product family here. (for downloading, you can connect your computer directly to your modem for direct internet connection). Since the supported firmware versions are of GNU General Public License "GPL", you can also get the code for those here. (Note: Please refrain from using unsupported firmwares like Tomato, etc. , which will lead you to more troubles , like WAP/WAP2 security cant be used, though they solve this problem.

2. Download TFPT Client.Though your firmware is corrupt, the good news is that there's a TFTP server running on your router. This enables us to manually push the proper firmware to the router. For this purpose, you need to have TFTP client on your machine. There are lot of free/trial softwares which provides you tftp client, like FTPrush, WinAgents, etc. , I used and will recommend Tftpd32 for first time users. You can download the software here and install it in your machine.

3. Connect your computer to the router.Now you can disconnect direct connection to the modem and connect the cable to any one of the slots at the back of your router. (Note: You can't use wireless means for upgrading the router.) you'll need the wired connection between your system and the router.

4. Change your computer's ip address to static one.The default id address for your router is 192.168.1.1, in other words, your router runs the tftp server in the mentioned address. The present setting for your computer will be "Obtain an IP address automatically" and "Obtain DNS server address automatically", since you were connected to internet. So, change it to static address by following the navigation "Start > Control Panel > Network Connections", right click on "Local Area Connection", click on "Properties", under General tab, select "Internet Protocol [TCP/IP]", click on "Properties" button, select "Use the following IP address" radio button, enter the values for IP Address: 182.168.1.2, Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0, Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1, select "Use the following DNS server addresses", enter the values for Preferred DNS server:192.168.1.1, Alternate DNS server:[leave it blank], click OK button in all the open windows for saving the settings.Verify your settings by giving "ipconfig" in the command prompt, which should display the ipaddress as "192.168.1.2". Also verify the connection to the router by giving "ping 192.168.1.1" in cmd prompt, for which you should get successfull reply.5. Upload the new firmware using tftpLaunch your tftp client using the navigation "Start > All Programs > Tftp32 > Tftp32". Click on the "Tftp Client" tab, and enter the values for Host: "192.168.1.1", Port:"69", for the Local File value: browse and select the latest firmware file which we downloaded in Step 1, and Click on "Put" button. The transfer may take from few seconds to few mins. Once the file is uploaded to the router, it will take 2 to 5 mins for the router to get updated. Still if your Power LED does not stop blinking, then try disconnecting the power supply and connect it again. Now you'll see the Power LED in ON state (instead of blinking state).

Congrats.... Thats it. You have successfully crossed the hurdle.Now you can connect the router with your modem, make the settings of your computer to "Obtain an IP address automatically" and "Obtain DNS server address automatically" by following the same process mentioned in Step 4, to allow your computer to connect automatically. Verify your internet connection now.

Yesterday i went to Wonderla. This is not my first visit to that place. May be fourth or fifth time. But still the eagerness to go there has not diminished, not even 0.0000001%. And Wonderla has never failed to meet the expectation. Thats a very gud place to be together with friends all thru the day. Thats the main reason i would say for going there, having fun together with friends. This gives a huge break from our routine daily life. This time, we were 9 of us. We're not from the same company. But this group is a fun loving group, always awaiting for adventures. Last time we went to River Rafting & Trekking near kudremukh. (the post related to that trip is under construction. you can expect it to be published very soon. will update here with that link - "Trekking & River Rafting... - Day One"). When we were on our way back, we already decided that our next trip will be to Wonderla. Though the date was fixed long back, it was just yes/no till saturday. Saturday morning is when Thiagarajan, our Gang CEO, decided and finally said "Yes. We're goin on sunday". So, all set for the trip by sturday evening. We went there in bikes - Deepak & Pradeep , Lakshmi & Prathiba , Vijay & Nirmal, Harsha & Me, and Thiagarajan.

Adding to being together is the thrilling, fun filled rides that the wonderla offers you. Each one is class of its own. No two rides are similar and you wont have any excuses to skip any of the ride, be it dry or water rides. We all had fun the whole day. Starting from Maverick, Y-Scream, Hurricane, Insanity, net walk, lazy river, termite train, wave pool, water rides etc till the WonderSplash - everything was just amazing. Me and Harsha were challenging each other in all the rides and had fun always.If you ask me the rides which makes me coming to wonderla again n again, i would value that one question to 100 marks, caz its that difficult. but my most fav one is the insane "Insanity". It is completely fun, right from the start, as we wont have any idea which direction we'll be the next second. (Me and Harsha went this ride thrice continously.) And Maverick will be the second most fav one, which is followed by Y-Scream and all water sports. i think i forgot to mention that "Giant Wheel".. though this is not that much thrilling, as it moves in snail pace, it gives a very gud view of the entire location and we feel like we're floating on top of everything nearby. (we didnt go for this one this time, as it was so dark in the sky and we have to reach the city before it starts raining).

After all the fun we had, we started at around 6:15pm from wonderla. And reached my place around 7:45pm. I thank each and every one for making this wonderful trip a memorable one, specially to Thiagarajan for planning this, Last but not the least, to Harsha, for painfully having me as the pillion, all thru the way. Great fun ppl. Will meet you soon at our next trip.

First being, My brother Jeya kumar's BDay - celebrated with beautiful blackforest cake at 12AM. We were watching US Open Semi-finals match between Nadal and Murray. And my brother was completely caught by surprise when i placed this beautiful cake in-front of him. lighted the candles just to be blown in the next minute by my brother. Only we two were there at house. So, that half kg delicous cake was all ours and we had to finish it that time itself caz it'll get spolied if we keep that cake till moring.

Secondly, Went to wonderla. About my wonderla trip - it was just Awesome.. more in the next post :)